Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 12:15:15 -0400 From: "Flynn Mclean" Subject: CDC AIDS Daily Summary 06/27/96 AIDS Daily Summary June 27, 1996 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National AIDS Clearinghouse makes available the following information as a public service only. Providing this information does not constitute endorsement by the CDC, the CDC National AIDS Clearinghouse, or any other organization. Reproduction of this text is encouraged; however, copies may not be sold, and the CDC National AIDS Clearinghouse should be cited as the source of this information. Copyright 1996, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD ****************************************************** "Law Requires Giving Results of H.I.V. Tests Of Newborns" "AIDS Risk in Transmission Said to Be 2 in 1 Million" "HIV Cases Nearly Doubled in China Last Year" "Conditions Wretched in Zimbabwe Prison" "Brooklyn Girl, 7, Is Raped; Three Men Capture a Suspect" "Most Americans Think AIDS Coverage Is Not Excessive" "HIV Outbreak in Cape Breton to Be Probed" "HIV May Cause Serious Damage to Immune System" "Identification of a Major Co-Receptor for Primary Isolates of HIV-1" "AIDS: 15 Years Later Caused 300,000 Deaths and Still No Cure" ****************************************************** "Law Requires Giving Results of H.I.V. Tests Of Newborns" New York Times (06/27/96) P. B4; Hernandez, Raymond New York Gov. George E. Pataki signed a controversial measure Wednesday requiring health officials to inform parents of the results of HIV tests the state routinely performs on all newborns. The state now tests all newborns to track the spread of HIV, but only tells parents the results if they ask. The issue has been controversial for years with proponents arguing that disclosure would result in better medical care for infected infants and opponents concerned that disclosing the results invades the privacy of the mother. Congress passed bills in May to require mandatory testing of newborns in the next few years if states do not show a reduction in the number of infected infants born. While a positive HIV test of a newborn does not necessarily mean the child is infected, it does mean the mother carries the virus. With this knowledge, the mother can avoid breastfeeding or other practices which could transmit the virus to an uninfected child. "AIDS Risk in Transmission Said to Be 2 in 1 Million" Washington Post (06/27/96) P. A16 The risk of contracting HIV through a blood transfusion is estimated to be 2 in 1 million, according to a study reported by George B. Schreiber of Westat, a research company in Rockville, Md. HIV antibodies in blood from newly infected donors may go undetected by blood banks because it takes about 22 days for the body to generate detectable levels of antibodies. Schreiber and colleagues evaluated records from 586,507 repeat donors to estimate how many newly infected people give blood during the 22-day period. Their results, and another study about the source of hepatitis C in blood donors, were published in today's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. "HIV Cases Nearly Doubled in China Last Year" Richmond Times-Dispatch (06/26/96) P. A4 The number of reported HIV cases in China nearly doubled last year, the state news agency reported Tuesday. The total number of HIV carriers is now 3,341, 46 percent more than a year ago. There are 117 people in China with full-blown AIDS and public health officials say the actual number of infected Chinese may be as high as 90,000. While the government views AIDS as a disease carried by foreigners, health officials say HIV is probably being spread by prostitutes and migrant workers. "Conditions Wretched in Zimbabwe Prison" Washington Times (06/27/96) P. A14 Zimbabwe's largest prison is overcrowded, some inmates go naked, and the prisoners are infected with lice and are beaten by wardens, notes the Herald, the country's main newspaper in reporting Wednesday on a visit to the jail by a Cabinet minister. A parliamentary report on the conditions warned of an outbreak of contagious disease. About 70 percent of prison deaths are attributed to AIDS. "Brooklyn Girl, 7, Is Raped; Three Men Capture a Suspect" New York Times (06/27/96) P. B3; A man who allegedly raped a 7-year-old Brooklyn girl told police he has HIV, a claim that is being investigated. Sabino Ruiz, 57, was charged with rape, sodomy, attempted murder, and endangering the welfare of a child. He allegedly lured the girl and her 5-year-old brother away from a playground to an abandoned apartment building. Three men working nearby heard the boy's screams and captured Ruiz as he was trying to escape through an air conditioning vent. "Most Americans Think AIDS Coverage Is Not Excessive" United Press International (06/26/96) Only 6 percent of Americans think the media covers AIDS too much, according to a new poll by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Forty-six percent said the amount of AIDS coverage was appropriate, and another 46 percent said there was not enough AIDS coverage. An analysis of news reports by Princeton Research Associates found that AIDS stories are "getting shorter, focusing more on celebrities, and increasingly being found in the soft news sections of papers." The proportion of AIDS stories in the sports sections and lifestyle sections have increased since the late 1980s. A previous survey found that while Americans have generally good knowledge about how HIV is transmitted, they do not recognize the global proportions of the epidemic. Only 4 percent of the AIDS stories analyzed had datelines from outside the United States. "HIV Outbreak in Cape Breton to Be Probed" Toronto Globe and Mail (06/26/96) P. A9 Canada's disease experts have been called on to investigate an HIV outbreak among intravenous drug users in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Epidemiologists from the Center for Disease Control in Ottawa will perform tests and interview HIV-positive drug users as they try to find out the size and cause of the outbreak. Health officials now know that 10 cases of HIV in Cape Breton are the result of intravenous drug users sharing needles. The province has given the AIDS Coalition of Cape Breton $50,000 to start the island's first needle exchange. "HIV May Cause Serious Damage to Immune System" United Press International (06/26/96) HIV infection may cause the body's immune cells to age prematurely, leaving people infected with the virus vulnerable to AIDS, scientists reported Wednesday in the journal AIDS. Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Geron Corporation found that the immune cells of patients in the late stages of HIV infection had aged so rapidly that they could have come from a 100-year-old person. The finding implies that the body's immune system reacts so aggressively to the HIV infection that it causes cells to age too quickly. Future therapies may target stopping the shortening of telomeres, the parts of the chromosome that tells the cell when to divide. This would allow HIV patients to maintain a functional immune system. "Identification of a Major Co-Receptor for Primary Isolates of HIV-1" Nature (06/20/96) Vol. 381, No. 6584, P. 661; Deng, HongKui; Liu, Rong; Ellmeier, Wilfried; et al. To infect CD4 cells, HIV-1's viral envelope glycoprotein binds to CD4, which is expressed on the cell surface. Studies have suggested that an additional specific cell-surface cofactor is necessary for HIV-1 to enter a cell. Fusin was recently identified as a co-receptor for T-trophic strains of HIV, but not for monocytes, macrophages, and primary T cells. These strains seem to be responsible for HIV-1 transmission. Researchers at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, led by Nathaniel R. Landau, identified CC-CKR-5 as the principal cofactor that, along with CD4, allows for the entry of these strains. The researchers propose that other potential co-receptors could also be important in HIV-1 infection. "AIDS: 15 Years Later Caused 300,000 Deaths and Still No Cure" Jet (06/24/96) Vol. 90, No. 6; P. 12; Haywood, Richette L. Since the first AIDS case was diagnosed 15 years ago, 300,000 people have died from the disease. While advances have been made in detecting and treating HIV infection, no cure has been found. AIDS is increasingly affecting women, non-injection drug users, heterosexuals, and minorities. In 1995, for the first time, there were equal proportions of whites and blacks with AIDS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. Also that year, blacks and Hispanics represented 54 percent of men with AIDS and 76 percent of the women with the disease. Calling the disease "a huge threat" to the black community, Ernest Hopkins, of the National Association for People with AIDS, said the epidemic demonstrates that the fact that community is not effectively preventing the spread of HIV and that community health systems are failing. More work is needed, says Louis Stokes, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus Health Brain Trust: "Every effort must be undertaken to educate the minority community, to provide increased access to health care, to increase the number of African American and other minority researchers in HIV/AIDS research, and to launch a major campaign targeted to at-risk populations." CLARIFICATION The Wall Street Journal made an error in its June 25 article titled "Boehringer Viramune Drug Cleared as HIV Treatment." The journal reported that Viramune was the first reverse transcriptase inhibitor to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration, when in fact it is the first non-nucleoside analog reverse transcriptase inhibitor.